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St. Luke 19:41-48 – Trinity 10 (2007)
St. Mark Lutheran Church
In the name of Jesus. Amen. Strange summer. We've been all over the church year this summer. We had Advent in June, Easter in July, the youth returned last Saturday from Asheville and FOR YOU, where they rejoiced in Good Friday.
Today we are back in Holy Week – Palm Sunday. Jesus comes into Jerusalem riding the royal donkey. And when He came, they sang.
Blessed is He who cometh in the Name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!
What a celebration! They sang a new song to their king! It was like new songs with a new hymnal! Or same old songs they had been singing before – like we sing today with our new hymnals.
And to their songs, to our songs, our King rides in humble majesty into Jerusalem.
The grumpy pharisees command Him to silence His disciples. Not today! For if the disciples don't sing to Him “the stones would immediately cry out.”
But when He comes near to the Jerusalem, the city of the King, the city of Peace, He pauses. He doesn't stop to enjoy or take in the moment. No, there looking at the city, He weeps.
"If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
No peace in the city of peace for we have rejected the things which make for our peace – we have rejected our king.
All that is left is the horrific conquest of the Romans – the enemies barricading and surrounding her on all sides. Jerusalem is leveled. Her children within her, to the ground. The Romans, just as Jesus said, did not leave one stone upon another.
But before Jerusalem gets it, Christ does. He weeps, but will not be wept for. As we set upon Him on all sides, as we lead Him away to the cross, He says..
"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”
We blindfolded Him and struck Him. We beat on Him. Prophesy to us, who strikes you, Christ. You did this. I did this too.
We surrounded Him. We hemmed Him in. Then the one who wept for us, we crucified. We destroyed Him. We did that.
Not you? Really. You are Jerusalem. You are His church. You did this. I did this too.
This is His visitation. The Cross is the visitation that gives Jerusalem- gives you - peace. This is God coming to His people – the Cross. This is what He does – He is surrounded, He is hemmed in, He is destroyed.
God cannot be destroyed. But when God comes in the person of Christ, when God takes on our flesh, He can.
He dies. He dies for Jerusalem who rejects Him. He dies for those who would destroy Him. He dies for you. He dies for me.
Today, God visits His people. He comes into His city and goes straight to the temple, cleansing it and driving out our sin.
He makes it clean, so that He can be the sacrifice which once for all time answers for our sins.
And while He waits for Good Friday, He sets up shop like He did in the Old Testament. There in the temple, He taught daily. He delivered peace. God was in the temple – God for His people.
But God different than before. He no longer resides in the Temple. Now, He sits with our flesh teaching.
God has come to His people – to Jerusalem. You, the His Church, are the new Jerusalem. Your foundation has not been turned over, it has not been destroyed. With Christ has your foundation, the gates of hell will not prevail against you.
When Christ is not our foundation, we are not Jerusalem, the church. We are something else - just a gathering of people.
Yesterday, the largest Lutheran... the largest Lutheran church body in American urge their bishops to refrain from disciplining pastors who are in "faithful committed same-gender relationships." The Word of God says such things are unspeakable.
That's fish in a barrel. What about you? Dr. Luther says that Christ weeps for His church who has the Gospel and despises it, leaves it.
You have the Gospel in your ears every Sunday – the glad tidings that God has visited His people and saved them without any merit or worthiness in you.
That Gospel is taught every Sunday. Are you here? Do you attend Bible Class regularly? Do you live and breath from the Word? Do you teach your kids too?
When parents drop their kids off at Sunday School and don't themselves attend. What does that confess? It confess Bible reading is for children or worse – you have turned my Father's house into a Sunday morning day care.
How's it going with you and the commandments? You can rattle them off, right? If you can't, if you don't know the commandments, how can you live for God this day? How do you know what pleases Him? How do you pray? Do you pray? Or do you just live on your own?
His Gospel isn't permission to despise His Word, others, to live for yourself. Don't you fear His wrath? Does your sins scare you?
Stop doing evil. Repent and turn from what you have done. Just because you haven't been caught, doesn't mean what you do isn't wrong! Come back to Bible Class. Use the new school year as a reason to come back to Church.
For Jesus visitation does not damn you. Instead He saves you, He shields you from the wrath of God you deserve. He saves you from God Himself.
What God should do to you, He has done to His Son. The wraith and punishment that should befall His Church, Christ has taken upon Himself. It takes God Himself – God in the Flesh to save you from God.
And that He did. No doubt. No uncertainty. His death is your peace – peace with God. God is not out to get you any more, He has no wraith toward you in Christ. Christ has brought an end to the Law and it's demands to all who believe in Him.
For an unfaithful Jerusalem. For unfaithful you, for unfaithful me, for His unfaithful Church, Christ is faithful. His faithfulness counts for your unfaithfulness. He takes upon Himself Jerusalem. He takes the place of Jerusalem – He is wept for, He is surrounded, He is hemmed in, He is destroyed, He dies.
He rises. Jerusalem rises with Him. You too. You will not be destroyed.
You will not die – not really, not forever. You'll fall asleep. But, you'll raise up, just as Christ rose on the third day.
He visits you again today in His Sacrament. No donkey. No weeping this week. No, He gives you His body, broken for you and His blood shed for you to eat and drink for your peace, for your life, and for your forgiveness. Peace in your mouth. Peace with God – peace always. He visits you and you are not destroyed. No, instead, you have peace.
It's been a strange summer of bouncing around the Church year. We've had Advent, Easter, and now we are back on Palm Sunday. Today we see King Jesus, the visitation of God that brings His Jerusalem, brings you peace.
The Church's One foundation, is Jesus Christ her Lord, she is His new creation, by water and the word. From heaven He came and sought to be His holy bride, with His own blood He bought her and for her life He died.
For her peace. For your peace. For the city of peace, Jerusalem. In the name of Jesus. Amen
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